Chubbuck City Hall remains on schedule for mid-July grand opening
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CHUBBUCK — Two newly named streets — Kinport Crossing and Scout Mountain Way — frame the city of Chubbuck’s newest municipal development.
What will become the new Chubbuck City Hall is on schedule for a mid-July grand-opening. A recent milestone was a unanimous city council vote approving the names of two new streets. The naming came after requests from the public that the streets be named after local mountain ranges or waterways. Both Kinport Crossing and Scout Mountain Way bear the names of prominent local mountain peaks.
Shops, food trucks, a walkable downtown and a new City Hall. How Chubbuck will change this summer.
Chubbuck Public Works Director Rodney Burch remains hopeful that a ceremonial ribbon-cutting will be possible a bit earlier than the grand-opening, even if some landscaping work remains unfinished at the time.
“I wish we were doing a Fourth of July ribbon-cutting,” Burch said. “It would be amazing to christen this building on our nation’s birthday.”
Garrett Goldale, Regional Manager for CM Company, INC., the construction company responsible for the development, said despite the drywall process being a week behind schedule, an early ribbon-cutting remains possible.
“Fourth of July ribbon-cutting is a milestone we’re shooting for,” he said.
Prior to the drywall process, which Goldale called the “start of the finish activities,” the development had not been more than five days off schedule since it began last April. Delays and fluctuations happen, according to Burch. It’s just part of the ebbs and flows of the construction process, Goldale added.
“We’re not worried about,” Burch said. “We still have the same move-in date that we’ve always had.”
Aside from the drywall, officials say development is going swimmingly. Installation of windows and skylights are underway. Giant steel window frames spanning both floors, being fabricated off-site, are being installed at a pace of one per day, according to CM Company Superintendent Jim Frazier.
With the interior taking shape, Burch has begun leading small tours of Chubbuck city staff to see the development. The idea, he said, has always been to make sure that all city staff, from the mayor to the mechanics, have some ownership over the development and their future offices. These visits, Burch said, have been met with excitement from all.
“As I walk through the facility now, we’re 95% on sheetrock and the bottom level is starting texture and paint. It’s really starting to look like a facility,” Burch said.
While the task of drywall, texture and painting slowly spans the interior, the exterior is nearing a finished appearance.
Plastic sheets have been removed over the past month and replaced with giant windows. Likewise, covers over skylights now have glass. On the west side of the building, the coloring and framing represent a finished product.
“Every time you pull some plastic down it’s like unwrapping a Christmas present,” Goldale joked.
At present, the grand-opening is tentatively scheduled for July 20.
